


Red Star, Red Hourglass

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gap Filler, Not Happy, Sad, Sad Ending, Tearjerker, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 16:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16245302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The story behind the Winter Soldier and Natalia Romanova. Also fills in the details about Odessa.This story is from Natalia/Natasha's POV.It is not a happy fic, and does not have a happy ending, but I couldn't get the idea out of my mind.





	Red Star, Red Hourglass

Natalia knows what it is to shoot. To kill, to take another life, to see blood staining your hands and clothing. But she has never done it. 

 

The Soldier has. 

 

He has taken countless lives, spilled the blood from innumerable veins, and stopped uncountable hearts from ever beating again. He doesn't care about anyone. 

 

So why is she different?

 

She asks herself that every day. For all the Soldier knows, she's just a girl, just another slave of Hydra and the Red Room. But he clung to her anyway. The strange spark of light in his cold blue eyes when they trained together...was it love? She doesn't know what love is, so she can't recognize it in a human heart, the Soldier's or her own.

 

But when he took her, when he fought his way through the building with her in tow, she was almost sure it was. 

 

They have been living in this small apartment for the past three weeks. Always on the lookout, always on guard, always afraid, but together. They know one day, they'll be found. But for now, they're alone, no Hydra, no Red Room, just them. And she wouldn't have it any other way.

 

But today, the Soldier is nervous, pacing back and forth, checking the windows, looking out to the street below. It sets her nerves on edge, and she gets up and goes to him. "What is wrong,  _Soldat?"_ she whispers, setting her hand on his shoulder where the metal meets his scarred flesh. 

 

The Soldier places his hand atop her own. "I have a bad feeling, _sveyda moya,"_ he answers, and she smiles at the name. _Sveyda moya..._ my star.

 

"Don't worry, Soldat," she responds. "We're safe." She gently leads him to the couch and rests her head on his shoulder. "Safe," she repeats. 

 

A squeal of brakes comes from the street. The Soldier's head jerks up, and he runs to the window. Natalia sighs and leans her head back, closing her eyes, knowing that it's just another false alarm.

 

But then the Soldier is shaking her. "Sveyda! Natalia, get up! They've found us!"

 

Natalia rockets to her feet, looking out the window at the men. So many men, piling out of vans, with guns and weapons she doesn't recognize. She sets her jaw. "We can fight them."

 

The Soldier speaks again, desperation in his voice. "No, we can't, sveyda. There are too many."

 

"Can we escape?" she asks, but the sinking in her stomach gives her the answer before the Soldier says it. 

 

"No. They've got us, Natalia. It's over." She's never heard such sorrow in his voice before. 

 

"We can try to fight, then," she answers. "We can at least resist them." It won't work. Hydra always claims their own. They are merely delaying the inevitable, and they both know it.

 

The Soldier nods, and she tears away to the bedroom, grabbing their guns.

 

"Sveyda!" the Soldier calls, and she runs to him, hearing the panic in his voice. He grabs her, cupping his hands around her face, brushing her hair back from her forehead, pressing his lips against hers. "Sveyda, they're going to make me forget again," he says, and his voice is a child's desperate plea. "I don't want to forget you."

 

Natalia sees the despair. They  _will_ make him forget, and she wants him to remember. He needs someone, something to hold on to. An idea sprouts in her mind, withers a bit, and then takes hold. If they make him forget, she will make him remember.

 

She slips away and rummages in the drawers. In one, she finds a set of paints and some brushes. She seizes a brush and a bottle and runs back to her Soldier. 

 

Natalia pours the paint out onto the table- it doesn't matter what they ruin, now- and watches it settle. It's bright red, like blood, she thinks, but she doesn't have time for anything else. 

 

She dips the brush in and moves it up to his arm, just past his shoulder, where the metal meets skin. A simple design, she thinks, one that Hydra won't recognize as hers, but something that reminds the Soldier of her. A smile touches her lips as she decides. 

 

And Natalia begins painting.

* * *

Natalia watches from the glass window, her eyes hard, her red hair disheveled. The men are rough with her Soldier _,_ but he fights them until they make him stop.

 

He fights for  _her._

 

And as the machine whirs to life and his screams fill her ears, she does the one thing she was never allowed to do. 

 

She weeps. She lets her emotions come through the way she never has before, sobbing her heart out as the Soldier's heart is ripped away again, letting her mind release its suffering as the Soldier's mind is twisted and broken as it has been so many times before. Natalia cries for the love she knows he'll forget, for what she so desperately wanted. 

 

A hand falls onto her shoulder, and she turns to see the Head standing behind her. The blonde woman smiles sadly at her. "Tears, my dear?" she says. "After all I've taught you? Emotions are weakness, Natalia. And he was never really in love with you, anyway. The Winter Soldier does not have the ability to love."

 

And Natalia answers back, the venom of a spider in her voice. "You're  _lying!"_ she growls. "I know you're lying!"

 

The woman caresses her cheek, and she jerks back, anger filling her, red-hot and boiling.

 

"Natalia!" the Head snaps. "Get ahold of yourself! You're not a child anymore!"

 

Natalia twists away rebelliously. "What does that have to do with anything?" She stopped being a child the day she entered this awful place.

 

The Head turns, watching as the men pull the Soldier up and drag him away. His eyes are vacant again, the spark that Natalia now knows was love stripped from them. And the Head smiles.

 

"Because, my darling, love is for children."

* * *

16 years later, Odessa, Ukraine

 

Natasha pulls the engineer from the vehicle and hoists him up. "Come on!" she yells at him, yanking the pistol from her belt. "We gotta go!" 

 

The man is clearly terrified. His lips move, but no sound comes out.  _He's going to be no help._

Natasha lifts the engineer over her shoulder and starts running. This man, this nuclear engineer, has to be kept safe. Her orders are clear. 

 

She is running to protect him. She is not afraid. She was their best operative, before the young man with the bow changed her. They have only one person she cannot compete with.

 

Gunshots pelt the road behind them, and Natasha risks a glance behind her. She loses her balance and falls, throwing the engineer behind a rock at the last minute. 

 

"Soldat," she whispers, a sickening feeling of dread turning her stomach sour.

 

"What?" the engineer replies, not understanding the Russian word, but she ignores him. They sent him- of course they sent him. The one person she can't-  _won't-_ fight. The one person she can't outrun. And they know that. They know it's either his life or hers. She is no longer his sveyda, his star. Now, she is simply someone standing in his way.

 

She frowns, hating the choice she has to make. And then she kicks her pistol away, watching it slide and skid until it bounces into the abyss below. 

 

The Soldier appears, facing them at point-blank range. He will not miss. He never misses. 

 

The engineer quakes beside her, and in a last-ditch effort, she throws her body over his. She will do what she can to finish her mission, even if it means losing her life to the man she once loved.

 

The wind kicks up, catching her red hair and spilling it over her shoulders, a terrible foreshadowing of the way her blood will stain the ground, as the Soldier raises his gun, pointing it at Natasha's heart. The bullet will rip through her and into the engineer, in a single, perfectly calculated shot. She watches his black-gloved finger tense on the trigger. 

 

And then, he stops. 

 

His eyes narrow as he sees her hair. He shifts the rifle's aim down, down to the left side of her stomach. 

 

The soldier fires.

 

Then he turns and walks away, the red star on his arm glinting in the fading sun.


End file.
